Lets say after taxes and the lump sum cut you end up with $600M, what you going to buy ? not interested in the boring obvious stuff, im talking extreme/fun wine ideas
For me it would just be building a cellar stocked with the worlds greatest wines so i could drink them every day. Of course there would be regular buying trips to the best wineries in the world for me and a select planeload of the best berserkers !!
Id buy an apartment in the hotel across the street from Bern’s and I’d eat there nightly. If I didn’t develop cirrhosis of the liver within five years, I’d be sorely disappointed.
So funny story. I know a few guys with some real money, one in particular counts his wealth in multiple Yards (that’s ‘wall street’ for billions for those not around these parts).
For his 50th birthday party he rented a 737, took out a huge hotel and a number of giant yachts around a caribbean island. 3 days of parties, champagne, caviar, etc. Hundreds of people, waiters in tuxedos wading into the water to bring flutes of champagne to guests, etc.
For his 60th birthday, he had 8 friends over to his house for a normal dinner.
Buy Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Decanter, Vinous, Burghound, Suckling’s website, CT and perhaps a few other lesser wine rags, then lay off all principals, staff, with extremely generous severance packages contingent upon the signing of non-competition agreements (no scores, no notes, no attendance at and reportage on tastings of 623 years of La Romanee, etc.) of maximum enforceable duration. The end of scores and tasting notes as we know them! And for a bit of whimsey, I may buy all of the Krankls’ winemaking facilities, and turn them over to Paul Draper. Or I may offer Thomas Matthews, heir apparent to Marvelous Marv Shanken, employment for a few million dollars a year…as my chauffeur. (Nothing personal there, but can’t you picture ol’ Tom in a chauffeur’s outfit with jaunty cap and leather driving gloves, holding the door for me?)
While wine things are way down on the list of what I’d spend money on they are not non-existent.
I’d get a larger apartment/condo which would can hold a larger wine storage unit. It will cost me a pang to part with my trusty 20 year old 34 bottle Avanti but I can steel myself to it. And it will have access to a large enough terrace/roof access that I can have a grill to cook foods to serve with the wine. Searing steak without setting off the fire alarm, what a concept…
I’d also finally be able to visit some wine regions. I’ve never been to Burgundy, the Loire, the Mosel…
Of course all this assumes that the one ticket I bought personally comes in. If I have to split it with everyone else on my floor at work things won’t change as much other than having more time to do things in my retirement.